It might not be too far fetched to claim that the Anglican Church in Australia is at a cross-roads. With one third of our Dioceses now declared unviable, and several more teetering on the edge, at the least, we have a serious problem to address. It seems to me that we need to come together to make some positive decisions about our future direction.

One of the glaring omissions in the viability report that was presented to the General Synod last July was the recovery of mission and evangelism as the only real strategy to reverse the trend of decline. There was an assumption that if we got the structures working better, then somehow we would see improvement.

I was recently talking with a ministry colleague of a different tradition. The ministry they were doing was primarily around trying to get people to “come to church”. That was the expressed and assumed goal. When I tried to prod that perhaps helping people come to faith in Jesus might be a more effective goal (and even delivering the desired outcome), I was met with a slightly mystified look, as if I was espousing some arcane idea from a bygone age.

But before I feel too smug, I weep when I see the relatively few people who have made first time professions of faith through our own ministry. If I am brutally honest, the vast majority of people who have become disciples of Jesus at our church have been from overseas, and vastly different cultures from the one in which I have grown up. Praise the Lord for students from Asia, and refugees from the Middle East who are hungry for the gospel, and who want to learn about Jesus!

But to borrow Paul’s phrase in Romans 9, “I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart … for my kindred” Aussies. Perhaps it has something to do with living in “the most livable city in the world”, but they seem almost immune to the gospel message that we try to hold out to them. While Melbourne claims that moniker, the rest of the country ain’t that bad either. I remember as a Curate in rural northern NSW preaching at a harvest festival on Deuteronomy 8 about the dangers of “forgetting the Lord”. In many ways the fertile valley where we lived was the Aussie equivalent of a “land flowing with milk and honey”, well at least bananas and sugar cane!

So what are we to do? If Australians already live in something they think of as close to heaven, and quite frankly see no need for the God that we speak about, then we need to do some pretty clear thinking if we are going to make any kind of impact, let alone see a future for our denomination.

At one level we need to be concerned more about the progress of the gospel than we are about the viability of Anglicanism. But at the same time, our Anglican heritage and identity is exactly what Australia needs. The English reformation was about transforming the church so that it was able to present the pure word of God to a world that was in the dark. Sound familiar? And the prayer book, was an attempt to put the word of God and the worship of God into a form that was understandable to the masses (pun intended). It was a missionary endeavor, to reach the people in a way that made sense.

We have just sent out a family from our church to work in cross-cultural mission in East Asia. They have spent the better part of the last 10 years learning about the culture and the ministry context into which they are about to step. They will learn the language, they will find appropriate illustrations of gospel truth that will work in their new context, they will think hard about how the gospel challenges the idols and systemic sins of the country in which they work.

We Aussies need to do the same. We need to realize that we are losing ground for the gospel in Australia by our refusal to change. I do assume with the general readership of Essentials that I am preaching to the converted. However even the converted need to keep sharpening their tools.

We recently did an exercise among our leadership team to develop a spiritual profile of the area we are trying to reach – a series of observations about what people believe and how the gospel addresses each of these beliefs. It was a fascinating exercise and we have much more work to do on it. So far we have identified that the typical person in our neighbourhood views themselves as: 

• Autonomous – valuing freedom to govern their lives.
• Secular – valuing the here and now, the material, and rejecting the supernatural .
• Consumerist – where their consumerism is focussed on experiences.
• Activist – passionate about social and political causes.
• Tribal – belonging to groups of like minded individuals.
• Culturally diverse – in ethnicity but also subcultures.
• Distrusting of institutions – therefore suspicious of the church along with other institutions.
• Egalitarian – believing that every individual has value and a say.
• Sexually active and libertine – where sexuality is a matter of personal choice.
• Highly educated and affluent – most with tertiary qualifications and or well paying jobs (with significant pockets of exception).

Highly engaged with technology – constantly connected through social media and tech devices.
That list might resonate with your context too. But that is a very different kind of person to the one who was being reached by Anglicans in Australia even in the 1980’s when I came to faith. If we don’t adapt, and don’t think how the gospel addresses these changing aspects of our society, and then build an action plan around them, then we will be tossed onto the scrap heap of irrelevance.

We know the Gospel still has something to say. We know that it is the Word of Life for our broken world. We know that it is powerful to transform lives. We know that it answers the deep assumptions and yearnings that are behind many of these observations. But we are going to have to work hard at finding new ways of communicating and engaging with the world and communicating in their language and culture, which I think is a very “Anglican” thing to do. The Anglican Church of the next generation may look very unlike the Anglican church of the last (or even this) generation. But being culturally adaptive, while holding on to the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints (Jude 3), is exactly what Anglicans are supposed to be good at.

Enter, The Anglican Future Conference, 2015. My hope and prayer all along has been that this national gathering of Anglicans will grapple seriously with the issues that I have raised. The conference has six strands:

1. Hearing from God’s Word: It is right that we listen to what God wants to say to us as his people. Kanishka Raffel will open up 2 Peter for us with its challenge about the importance of doctrine and the godly life, and its call to action.

2. Recovering our Anglican Identity: As I have said above, the Anglican movement has been a force for gospel good in our world. Recovering what it really means to be Anglican in a theological sense will help us see the relevance and beauty of what our tradition has to offer for mission in the 21st century. Anglican identity is “what we believe”, and Ashley Null (an internationally renowned Anglican scholar) will unpack this for us over our three days together. Our desire is that it will make us confident about our Anglican future.

3. Standing in the Global Anglican Community: We are not alone in dealing with rapidly changing mission environments. In fact the whole Anglican communion is engaged in different ways. From the challenges of Islam, to the rise of secularism, and the changing face of mission, we need to learn from each other. We are bringing the world to Melbourne in March, where we will hear from Anglican brothers and sisters across the globe about what contending for the faith means for them.

4. Understanding our Missionary Context: As we have noted above Australia is on the move. Our plenary session on our missionary context, and the seven workshops that follow, will help us encounter some of these changes, and think how the gospel helps us to engage them. Simon Smart from the Centre for Public Christianity and Julie-Anne Laird from AFES at Melbourne University will help us think like missionaries at home.

5. Encountering Critical Issues for the Church in the West: There are many issues we need to grapple with if we are going to adapt for mission. New ideas and opportunities abound, and a few hurdles must be overcome. A plenary session led by Stephen Hale (Chair of EFAC Australia) with a panel of practitioners will identify the issues, and again 8 different workshops will help us think about how to put this into action.

6. Imagining Our Anglican Future: We have the potential for a strong positive and healthy future. In the plenary session Peter Adam will share some thoughts about what this might look like, and then a panel will respond to him. Contrary to the thoughts of some, this is not about the secession of FCA and EFAC from the Anglican Church of Australia, it is about our positive contribution to its future. Various workshops will help equip us for a strong faithful future.

On the Thursday evening we will launch the Australian branch of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans, and invite people to become members. We think this fellowship of likeminded orthodox Anglicans will be a necessary alliance as we move forward together.

My hope and prayer is that this conference will be a positive contribution for all Anglicans in Australia. We have a great gospel to proclaim, and much work to be done. Registrations continue to grow and so I’m glad that it looks like we will have a strong group of Anglicans gathered to work out how to move through our cross-roads to a fruitful and exciting future.

Richard Condie
Chair – Anglican Future Conference
Vicar, St Jude’s Carlton.